This invention relates to systems and methods of dispensing adhesive in a bookbinding system.
Today, a variety of different bookbinding systems can deliver professionally bound documents, including books, manuals, publications, annual reports, newsletters, business plans, and brochures. A bookbinding system generally may be classified as a commercial (or trade) bookbinding system that is designed for in-line manufacturing of high quality volume runs or an in-house (or office) bookbinding system designed for short xe2x80x9con-demandxe2x80x9d runs. Commercial bookbinding systems generally provide a wide variety of binding capabilities, but require large production runs (e.g., on the order of thousands of bindings) to offset the set-up cost of each production run and to support the necessary investment in expensive in-line production equipment. Office bookbinding systems, on the other hand, generally involve manual intervention and provide relatively few binding capabilities, but are significantly less expensive to set up and operate than commercial bookbinding systems, even for short on-demand production runs of only a few books.
In general, a bookbinding system collects a plurality of sheets (or pages) into a text body (or book block) that includes a spine and two side hinge areas. The bookbinding system applies an adhesive to the text body spine to bind the sheets together. A cover may be attached to the bound text body by applying an adhesive to the side hinge areas or the spine of the text body, or both. The cover of a typical commercial soft cover book generally is attached to the text body spine. The covers of hardcover books and some soft cover xe2x80x9clay flatxe2x80x9d books, on the other hand, typically are attached to the side hinge areas of the text body and are not attached to the text body spines (i.e., the spines are xe2x80x9cfloatingxe2x80x9d).
The invention features novel systems and methods of dispensing adhesive in a bookbinding system. In accordance with this inventive scheme, books of different lengths (or heights) may be readily bound with solid sheet adhesive that may be contained within a single, replaceable cartridge housing.
In one aspect, the invention features a system for binding sheets into bound text bodies having respective spines exposed for adhesive application and characterized by multiple length dimensions and multiple thickness dimensions. The system comprises an adhesive dispenser that is configured to dispense across the thickness dimension of a text body spine solid sheet adhesive having one of multiple effective widths that is sized to correspond substantially to the length dimension of the text body spine.
Embodiments in accordance with this aspect of the invention may include one or more of the following features.
The adhesive dispenser may be configured to dispense multiple segments of solid sheet adhesive along the length dimension of the text body spine. The solid sheet adhesive segments may have different widths or the same width. In some embodiments, the adhesive dispenser may be configured to dispense at least one solid sheet adhesive independently of the other solid sheet adhesive segments. For example, the adhesive dispenser may include a roller system for dispensing the multiple segments of solid sheet adhesive. The roller system may include a drive shaft supporting multiple drive rollers. The adhesive dispenser also may include a motor for driving the drive shaft. A clutch may be disposed between a pair of drive rollers to enable one or both drive rollers of the drive roller pair to be driven selectively by the motor.
An adhesive quantity interrogator may be configured to obtain indications of the length of each solid sheet adhesive segment remaining in a plug-in cartridge housing. A controller may be configured to transmit a warning message when any of the solid sheet adhesive segments is nearly spent.
In some embodiments, the adhesive dispenser is configured to dispense multiple segments of solid sheet adhesive along the length dimension of the text body spine simultaneously. In other embodiments, the adhesive dispenser is configured to dispense multiple segments of solid sheet adhesive along the length dimension of the text body spine sequentially. For example, the adhesive dispenser may be configured to position a plug-in cartridge housing containing a roll of solid sheet adhesive at multiple locations along the length dimension of the text body spine.
In some embodiments, the adhesive dispenser comprises a width cutter for cutting solid sheet adhesive to an effective width substantially corresponding to the length dimension of the text body spine. The adhesive dispenser also may include a length cutter for cutting the solid sheet adhesive to a length at least as large as the thickness dimension of the text body spine. In this embodiment, the adhesive dispenser may be configured to advance the solid sheet adhesive beyond the location cut by the width cutter, and to cut across the solid sheet adhesive with the length cutter to prepare a clean leading edge for a subsequent sheet binding. The adhesive dispenser may include a waste reservoir that is configured to store excess solid sheet adhesive that has been cut by the width cutter.
The invention also features a method of binding sheets into bound text bodies.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description, including the drawings and the claims.